An attendant observes the Galveston Bay Foundation report card Aug. 15, 2018, during an event near the Buffalo Bayou in downtown Houston organized to talk about the efforts to improve the conditions of the

An attendant observes the Galveston Bay Foundation report card Aug. 15, 2018, during an event near the Buffalo Bayou in downtown Houston organized to talk about the efforts to improve the conditions of the Galveston Bay.

Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Staff Photographer / Staff Photographer

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Lisa Gonzalez, president and chief executive officer of the Houston Advanced Research Center, talked about the Galveston Bay Foundation report card and the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the health of the local

Lisa Gonzalez, president and chief executive officer of the Houston Advanced Research Center, talked about the Galveston Bay Foundation report card and the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the health of the local environment on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018, in Houston.

Photo: Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

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A dolphin swims in Galveston Bay in this 2017 file photo. After Hurricane Harvey, Galveston Bay dolphins turned up malnourished and covered with skin lesions, which researchers believe is related to the

A dolphin swims in Galveston Bay in this 2017 file photo. After Hurricane Harvey, Galveston Bay dolphins turned up malnourished and covered with skin lesions, which researchers believe is related to the inundation of freshwater into the bay. Some studies show that these skin conditions can be the result of pollution, much of which dumped into the bay during and after Harvey.

As Houstonians emerged, waterlogged, from their homes, cars and shelters after Hurricane Harvey last year, many turned their attention to Galveston Bay, fearful of what the monstrous storm might have done to its vital ecosystem.

Reports of widespread oyster deaths and sickly dolphins surfaced just as pollution numbers became public: More than 150 million gallons of raw sewage and industrial discharge, as well as toxic chemicals from about 100 companies, including Valero Energy, ExxonMobil and Arkema, had spewed into communities and local waterways. To many, it seemed common sense that some of that toxic sludge would reach the bay.

“I think it’s kind of misleading to label water quality an ‘A,’ ” said Brian Zabcik, clean water advocate for Environment Texas, after reviewing the report. “But it’s a very narrow definition of water quality.”

So narrow, in fact, that Erin Kinney, a center research scientist, said researchers didn’t take into account any chemical spills in the water.

“That data set wasn’t robust enough when we were developing this to provide a grade,” she said.

The levels of dissolved oxygen and nitrogen in water samples from rivers, bayous and the bay “were most often at acceptable levels for supporting diverse and healthy aquatic life,” the report stated. “The water quality problems that did exist — relating to high levels of phosphorus — typically occur in bayous that receive runoff and wastewater from human activity in residential, industrial, commercial, and agricultural areas.”

Zabcik said it’s possible that toxics in the water would have been diluted once that water reached the bay, despite the storm's devastation.

This is the fourth year the bay has been graded and the report covers six total categories: human health risks, water quality, wildlife, habitat, coastal change and pollution. Only water quality received an excellent grade, despite the gallons of toxic sludge that spewed into the waterways during Harvey.

Some of the information collected for the report card — about birds, water temperature and freshwater inflows, for example — was gathered before Harvey. Other information was gathered after the storm, but it took some time for agencies to resume sampling schedules because of unsafe conditions, the report card states.

“In most cases, the gaps were short and likely still include some impacts of Hurricane Harvey,” according to the report card.

One of the problems is the lack of monitoring data, both during and after major storms, researchers have said.

Earlier this year, the Chronicle and the Associated Press published a series on the government’s inaction following more than 100 toxic spills on land, in water and in air during and after Harvey, even though documents show that benzene, vinyl chloride, butadiene and other known human carcinogens were among the dozens of tons of industrial chemicals released throughout Houston’s petrochemical corridor and surrounding neighborhoods and waterways.

The news organizations found that testing by state and federal regulators of soil and water for contaminants largely was limited to Superfund toxic waste sites.

Kinney added that the bay report card was not designed to determine the impacts of one particular event. Rather, it’s goal is to look at the watershed’s health as a whole.

The report's goal is to look at “longer term scale impacts,” she continued.

Researchers looked at two other indicators of unsafe waters that would have been impacted by Harvey.

In the human health risk category, they examined how much enterococcus — an indicator of fecal bacteria in salt water — was in the bay in 2017. They gave the bay an "A," or "excellent," grade in this category as well because only 7 percent of the samples collected exceeded screening levels.

"The risk of bacterial infection while swimming in the open waters of the bay remain low," the report states.

It wasn't immediately clear when those samples were taken.

"Water samples tested immediately following rain events often show a spike in bacteria levels," the report stated. "Storm water can cause wastewater treatment facilities and septic system overflows ... Investments in wastewater treatment infrastructure are needed to improve water recreation safety."

Environment Texas recently released a report about bacteria pollution, which showed that six beaches along Galveston Bay were unsafe to swim in five or more times throughout the year.

Researchers also look at toxics in the bay’s sediment — based on testing conducted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — over a period of more than 10 years. These contaminants include PCBs, dioxins, PAHs, pesticides, and metals such as mercury, lead and zinc. But the only sediment testing done by the state after Harvey was in November, Kinney said, several months after Harvey’s devastation.

“Those toxics are not what was in the water, that’s what was in the sediment,” she added. “And again, it is for more than just 2017 because there’s not enough data points for those data sets to just look at one year at a time.”